Abode CS4 already the victim of software piracy

The ink has barely dried on price tags for the retail version of Adobe Creative Suite 4 image editing and design software, and already it’s climbing the charts for number of illegal acquisitions.

Tech site ZDNet.com reported on Friday that CS4, which includes the latest versions of familiar software titles Photoshop and Illustrator, has already shown up in pirated form in large numbers on the web. “Little more than a week after its global launch, Adobe’s Creative Suite 4 has shown up on popular BitTorrent tracking sites in large numbers,” writes ZDNet Australia’s Renai LeMay.

Adobe’s product security has historically been somewhat lax, making Photoshop and the other components from previous versions of its pro-grade Creative Suite a popular target for software pirates.

User surveys have cited the cost of Adobe’s professional-grade editing software (the current version of Creative Suite Master Collection retails for $2,499 in the U.S.) as contributing to the package’s popularity in pirated form, though it seems unlikely to us that most downloaders would be less willing to bypass illegal (but free) channels for acquiring the software were it less expensive.